Car tax scam uncovered
A SCAM to dodge paying tax on upmarket vehicles imported from Germany has been uncovered by Guardia Civil investigating a company based in Guardamar del Segura.
A spokesman for the force said the provincial traffic department (DGT) spotted that the company had registered two vehicles to one person and then just two days later transferred them to other people.
After three months of analysing documentation, officers uncovered the details of the alleged crimes of the seven suspects.
They bought the vehicles in Germany without paying IVA (VAT) but supplied manipulated invoices with false details of having paid the tax when they registered them in Spain.
Two individuals were put down as the owners without their knowledge or consent, forging their signatures and using their identification numbers (DNI), which had been obtained under false pretences by promising employment contracts that never materialised.
They were used so that if the authorities discovered some irregularity they would be held responsible as the ‘legal’ owners of the vehicles.
The change of ownership paperwork was always carried out by the same individual at the Alicante traffic department.
The suspects stopped working for the company in February 2019 and set up a new one to continue the same activity using a new procedure that would be more difficult to investigate. By comparing the invoices presented to the traffic office with the originals from Germany, and the supposed receipts for paying the IVA in that country, a total of 12 top-ofthe-range vehicles were found to have been registered in this way, defrauding the Spanish tax office out of an estimated €48,800.
Five men, aged between 38 and 52, and two women, 26 and 47, all of them Spanish, were arrested in Alicante, Torrevieja and Benidorm.
They have all been released on bail charged with falsifying documentation.
Three of the vehicles have been recovered because they were still in in the suspects’ possession, while the other nine have been located and the treasury department will decide what happens with them.